New Performance Spaces Will Expand Orlando Theater Offerings

STATE OF THE ARTS AN AGENDA FOR THE '90s - FACILITIES The challenge: Building a better home for the arts.

September 24, 1989|By Steven Brown, Sentinel Music Critic

If Central Florida doesn't have a bona fide performing arts center in the works, it is making some progress with smaller projects.

Two new theaters are nearly ready to open. In a few weeks, the Lake Eola Amphitheater, soon to be the home of the Orlando Shakespeare Festival, will light up for the first time. In January, Civic Theatre of Central Florida will open its 428-seat Ann Giles Densch Theatre for Young People.

Two other projects are gaining momentum. Alongside Lake Ivanhoe, work is almost set to begin on the much-delayed conversion of the old Orlando Utilities Commission power plant into the Dr. Phillips Center for Performing Arts. And theatrical producer Zev Bufman, who is letting bids for a 16,000-seat amphitheater in Phoenix, Ariz., is preparing to build a duplicate at the University of Central Florida.

Civic's new theater, the largest in its complex at Loch Haven Park, will be busy from the start. About 60,000 students a year will be bused in for plays geared to children, said general manager Mary Ann Dean; that's about twice the number Civic can handle now. In the spare time, Civic will use the new theater to expand its Miniseries, which features relatively adventuresome plays that don't fit into its main series.

The amphitheater at Lake Eola may be more of a resource for the arts at large. Between rehearsals and performances, the upcoming Shakespeare Festival will tie it up for about six weeks, said artistic director Stuart Omans. Outside of that, the place will be up for grabs.

''We've already got our eye on it,'' said Kip Watson, general manager of the Southern Ballet Theatre. Although the stage itself isn't right for dancing, the SBT could cart in the same portable, springy dance floor it uses whenever it hits the road. So far, though, the group hasn't given much thought to what it might do there.

The Orlando Opera Company is eager to do an outdoor series of musical comedy and light opera, but the new amphitheater isn't the place, said general director Richard Owens. Musicals need choruses and, often, numerous principals, and the stage at Lake Eola is too small to give them space to move around. And while straight plays are often written to be done on a single set, musicals often demand several, Owens said. But the amphitheater couldn't handle them, because it has too little space offstage.

The Dr. Phillips Center will eventually contain office and rehearsal space for the SBT, Orlando Opera and Orlando Theatre Project. A small theater with about 400 seats will occupy one end. Since 1986, when the OUC agreed to lease the building out, the remodeling has been delayed by design changes and holdups in building permits.

But now the permits are set, said Bob Meherg, president of the Ivanhoe Foundation, which is overseeing the process. Although the group needs to raise another $1 million to pay for the whole renovation, work can begin as soon as some final choices are made on building materials, Meherg said. The crews probably will go in by October, he added, and the building should be ready for use in 18 months.

Its future residents are looking forward to that day. The five rehearsal studios will end their years of searching for places to work, said Owens, of the opera. And they will be able to rehearse on areas the same size as the stage at Carr Performing Arts Centre, added Watson, of SBT.

The theater could also serve for musical revues and chamber opera, Owens said, enabling the company to put more energy into audience development and education.

''Even well done, opera tends to be too much of a distant pageant to interest a child,'' Owens said. ''He can sit and take in the wonder of it, but it's hard for him to get involved. I'd like to do something where it's closer, and we can do that with a place that's smaller, like this.''

The amphitheater at UCF will take the other extreme, entrepreneur Bufman said. Similar to - but much bigger than - the amphitheater at Virginia's Wolf Trap Farm Park, it will have 6,500 seats under shelter and room for 10,500 more people in an open-air, grassy area. Bufman's own ZevBufman Amphitheatre Corp. will pay for the construction, which will probably come to about $12 million, and also will pay rent for UCF's land. If construction begins by next summer, the theater could open by the spring of 1991.

With its full-fledged stage house - including a much roomier stage than Carr Performing Arts Centre - the amphitheater will be able to handle full-size touring productions of theater, ballet and opera. Besides serving UCF functions, the theater will be used for such events.

Because of the numbers of tickets that presenters can sell for each night, they can set prices much lower than groups that use conventional theaters, Bufman said. Tickets in the $15 range would be the norm.

''People will come to these performances who wouldn't otherwise consider the option,'' Bufman said. ''This is another way of opening the great world of the theater to people who couldn't afford it otherwise.''